Brian Thompson built Locker Room out of his own habit of calling athletes he knew to split investment opportunities, later turning that into a formal fund at LEAD, and his credibility with athletes traces back to earlier work developing the Albany luxury resort in the Bahamas, where he formed relationships with high-profile athletes and celebrities. He treats those athlete investors as a source of deals rather than just names on a cap table—Locker Room's early stakes in TMRW Sports and Eastside Golf came through golfers connected to the fund—and he's even set to play Brooks Koepka's caddie in Happy Gilmore 2, a small sign of how close he is to the athlete world he invests alongside.